Sharks | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:11]The coastal waters around Cape Town, South Africa, have long teamed with great white sharks. But about 10 years ago, carcasses of these feared predators began washing up on beaches with their livers missing. Now, it's hard to find any great whites. Tonight, a story that has all the hallmarks of a who done it.

[00:00:30]One that's fueled a bitter feud among scientists and conservationists who can't agree on who or what is the real culprit. They do agree on one thing. The great white sharks that once cruised these waters are gone.

[00:00:46]For as long as anyone can remember, the ocean off Cape Town was the best place in the world to see great whites.

[00:00:56]There were plenty of smaller sharks for them to hunt and tens of thousands of seals which live on a small stretch of rock nearby called Seal Island.

[00:01:08]Early each morning, with a little luck, you could catch sight of these majestic predators flying out of the water.

[00:01:16]>> That was unbelievable. Until a little more than a decade ago, Chris Fallows, a photographer and naturalist, used to see 250 to 300 different great white sharks a year. The images he took back then are amongst the most breathtaking of the natural world.

[00:01:33]>> It's a sight you you never forget. You know, I still kind of get that tingly feeling >> to see the most spectacular shark on Earth now flying out the water. It was truly incredible to see.

[00:01:45]We saw that ourselves in 2010 when we reported on the great whites here and the tens of thousands of visitors who came each year for a close encounter in cages.

[00:01:55]>> That was really something.

[00:01:58]>> We were taken diving without a cage in water that had been chummed with blood to attract sharks.

[00:02:06]Immediately, a 15t great white swam straight toward us.

[00:02:10]>> That's a big voice. This is amazing.

[00:02:14]It's coming right toward us.

[00:02:16]>> Sharks are curious creatures and they circled us constantly. It was extraordinary to be so close to such a massive predator.

[00:02:27]>> How's it going? That's just unbelievable.

[00:02:31]>> Wow.

[00:02:33]>> And I'm so happy I'm back up.

[00:02:36]>> But just a few years after that dive, sightings of sharks here began to dwindle and the tourists stopped coming.

[00:02:43]If you went out and did that today, you would see nothing.

[00:02:46]>> Why is that?

[00:02:47]>> Because their numbers have simply plummeted. Tragically, we have all but lost the great white shark.

[00:02:53]>> The disappearance of great whites from here mystified scientists. Allison [ __ ] a marine biologist with South African National Parks, began searching for clues. In 2015, divers sent her these photos of smaller shark carcasses on the sea floor with mysterious incisions in them.

[00:03:13]>> It looked so surgical from the photographs that I first assumed it must have been done by somebody with a knife, >> a fisherman or something.

[00:03:21]>> Yes. And it wasn't until the next time it happened that I managed to retrieve some of the carcasses and study them.

[00:03:32]And I found tooth marks on the pectoral fins of some of the dead sharks.

[00:03:37]>> Those tooth marks suggested the culprits couldn't be human. So [ __ ] and her colleagues went diving for more evidence and encountered an unlikely suspect.

[00:03:47]Orcas, killer whales. We just retrieved one of the carcasses and my research partner says orca and here comes two orcas under the boat in our study area. It was light bulb.

[00:04:05]They were feeding right in that area where we just found the carcass. Now what we have is that orcas are a real possibility for being the culprit for these carcasses. Two years later, great whites began washing ashore with their livers missing.

[00:04:24]>> What's so tasty about a shark liver?

[00:04:26]>> It's the most um calorie dense organ out of the whole body, and it takes up um almost a third of the shark's body.

[00:04:33]>> So, they're not trying to eat the entire shark.

[00:04:36]>> They're just targeting the liver.

[00:04:39]>> [ __ ] and her colleagues perform necropsies and confirmed orcas were indeed the culprits. They've been in these waters for years, but no one had ever seen one kill a great white here, though they are known to hunt them off California and around Australia. For South Africa, this was completely novel because for a long time you go, but white sharks are the apex predators. And this is, I think, why people struggle to sort of believe that this was happening.

[00:05:06]>> I mean, it is like something out of CSI.

[00:05:08]It's like you're the detective. and I feel like a detective, but for for a long time, we we didn't have all of the pieces of the puzzle.

[00:05:17]>> David Herurwitz helped put the puzzle together. He's a whale watching tour operator and was the first person to see two very distinctive male orcas hunting and killing sharks. He named them Port and Starboard.

[00:05:31]>> What was distinctive about them is that both of their dorsal fins were collapsed, which is very unusual. like collapsed over like that.

[00:05:39]>> The one had collapsed to the left, the other one to the right. And being a nautical man, immediately it came to uh my mind. Let's call them port starboard.

[00:05:49]And that caught on from there. And uh they've become world famous or infamous.

[00:05:55]>> Infamous because unlike most orcas, which hunt in groups called pods, Port and starboard were hunting sharks for their livers as a pair. They're hunting on their own in ways people here have never seen before. I mean, are these like serial killers?

[00:06:11]>> They are definitely not serious.

[00:06:13]>> They're eating the livers of it's like Hannibal Lecture with eating liver with fava beans.

[00:06:17]>> I am so infatuated by Port Star. You'll never get me to say a bad word against them.

[00:06:25]>> Scientists now believe Port and Starbird might even be teaching other orcas how to hunt down sharks. In 2022, this drone footage captured five orcas working together, stunning and then killing a great white.

[00:06:39]>> Here's an orca with this big white shark upside down biting into the area where the liver is.

[00:06:46]>> More recently, single orcas have been seen hunting sharks in South Africa and elsewhere. This National Geographic documentary shows an orca striking a great white like a torpedo, stunning it, then taking it in its mouth.

[00:07:02]>> They're learning. They're learning all the time. I think it's hard for people to kind of understand how smart these animals are. [ __ ] maintains the presence of these smart hunters, has chased the once dominant great whites further along the coast, and insists that overall the population of great whites in South African waters is stable. The presence of just two orcas that would drive away hundreds of them.

[00:07:27]>> The predator eats the prey and that has an impact on some of the numbers. But one of the biggest things with predation is the fear of predation or the risk of predation and what we call the landscape of fear.

[00:07:40]>> But gazelle don't disappear because a lion is killing some gazelle.

[00:07:46]>> They've evolved alongside of their predator. White sharks have not. White sharks have been the top dog. This was a novel predator for them. They were not used to being predated on by another species. Orcas have been killing white shark for thousand of years.

[00:08:03]>> Enrico Janari is an Italian marine biologist who's been researching great whites in South Africa for 20 years. He doesn't agree with Allison [ __ ] that the population is stable.

[00:08:14]>> The question is not the orcas are pushing white shark away. Same thing happened in California. Same thing happened in Australia. The question here in Cedria why they are not coming back.

[00:08:25]In California, orcas have killed great white sharks, but then the great whites came back.

[00:08:29]>> Up to six, nine months, the white shark left, but they always come back. Janari and photographer Chris Fallows both agree the numbers of great whites plummeted a few years before Port and Starboard began their killing spree. By the time the great white sharks then had completely disappeared from Sue Island, we had never once seen port and starboard at Sue Island.

[00:08:55]>> You don't buy this argument that it's these two orcas that have made all the great whites here disappear.

[00:09:00]>> I don't buy it one bit. How can you blame somebody that wasn't even on the crime scene?

[00:09:06]>> Fellows and Janari argue humans are ultimately to blame. They've been documenting the impact of commercial fishing boats on smaller shark species that are a staple of the great whites diet. The boats lay miles of long lines with thousands of hooks attached on the ocean floor. The sharks they catch are exported to Australia used for cheap fish and chips.

[00:09:29]>> Shark long lining is undoubtedly robbing the great white sharks of food. It's the primary prey source for the great whites when they're not feeding on seals. When you remove the prey, you have a significant impact on the predator.

[00:09:42]>> An even bigger impact on great whites, fallows and jennari say are shark nets and baited hooks attached to buoys, which the South African authorities have used to protect swimmers along the coast since the 1950s. Nets and hooks kill more than 20 great whites a year along with whatever else gets caught by them.

[00:10:02]>> The device are designed to kill and lower the population number. The concept is one less shark, one less chance of an encounter with a human.

[00:10:14]>> Jinari would like to see South Africa embrace a variety of alternatives to protect swimmers like underwater magnetic fields which interfere with the sense sharks use for hunting or increasing the use of smaller mesh nets which create a barrier without entangling marine life. The problem that inside Africa we only using little method and that is outdated and unsustainable.

[00:10:43]>> If you believe that it's these two orcas which have driven away the great white population, there's not much humans can do about that. What your argument is there's actually a lot humans can do with longline fishing and getting rid of these shark nets. That is something humans can impact.

[00:10:59]>> Absolutely. Let's stop bickering about something we can't control. and let's start focusing on the things that we can control. And if we don't start addressing those factors that we can control, I don't believe there's any hope. In 1991, South Africa was the first country in the world to protect the great white shark. But Enrio Janari believes those efforts have failed and now fears it may be the first country to lose them. If we lose the white shark in South Africa, we lose a battle for all nature. If we can't protect even the most charismatic, most protected species on paper in South Africa, what chance the little guys, the other sharks or the other animals have against unsustainable use? Nothing.

[00:11:52]There's a lot of people watching who may not have a lot of sympathy with great white sharks. Why should somebody care?

[00:11:56]>> I think somebody should care in the same way as we never used to have sympathy with whales. You know, we are wiping these animals animals out to the point of extinction. Great whites are no different. So even if we don't like the look of the animal, they're incredibly important for us going forward.

[00:12:15]With no great whites to document, has shifted his focus to photographing humpback whales.

[00:12:21]>> Unbelievable.

[00:12:23]>> Since a moratorum on commercial whaling was enacted in the 1980s, humpbacks have made a remarkable comeback.

[00:12:30]>> Does it have anything to do with the great whites leaving?

[00:12:33]>> No. What it's got 100% to do with is enlightened governments, passionate individuals showcasing the whales for what they were. Incredibly sentient creatures having an important role to play in our ocean. Therefore, they became protected and then now their numbers are being allowed to expand naturally.

[00:12:50]>> To you, that's an example that conservation efforts can work.

[00:12:54]>> Undoubtedly, it can work. I believe, you know, if we take away pressures on animals, if there are enough of them, they will still rebound. It's called balance.

[00:13:04]A balanced ocean is a healthy ocean. A healthy ocean is a healthy environment for us.

[00:13:16]The book and movie Jaws introduced us to the great white shark more than 40 years ago and scared us out of our wits. Much of the film was shot in the waters off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The irony is that when it came out in the mid 1970s, there were very few white sharks around Cape Cod. The species was in the midst of a serious decline, and the movie made it worse with fishermen hunting the few great whites that there were. White sharks were granted federal protection in 1997, and in the years since have made a comeback that has delighted conservationists and frightened swimmers and surfers. On Cape Cod this summer, shark sightings and beach closings were about as common as lobster rolls. As we saw for ourselves, the Atlantic great white shark is back.

[00:14:13]>> Look at this fish.

[00:14:14]>> Look at this fish.

[00:14:15]>> Yeah, look at this fish.

[00:14:17]>> On a Tuesday in midepptember, we are with Dr. Greg Scoal, chief shark scientist for the Massachusetts Department of Marine Fisheries, following an 11 ft white shark swimming just feet off the beach near Truro on Cape Cod.

[00:14:34]>> And if you're standing there, you don't know that shark. You don't know that shark.

[00:14:38]>> No idea. She's like 10 ft offshore.

[00:14:41]>> Yeah, it's very close. Now, >> white sharks are so close to shore because that's where their favorite food is. Gray seals. Thousands of which now call Cape Cod home.

[00:14:53]>> This is the restaurant right here. These sharks have found the restaurant and they're waiting for the doors to open.

[00:14:58]You know, and when those seals begin to leave the beach, you know, >> it's dinner time.

[00:15:03]>> It's dinner time.

[00:15:05]>> Scoal and his team from the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy are trying to attach electronic tracking tags to as many sharks as they can. Nearly 200 so far. The way they do it is fascinating.

[00:15:19]Pilot Wayne Davis locates sharks from his spotter plane, then guides boat captain John King onto them.

[00:15:27]>> Yeah, use a little gas, John. He's right on the shore. It's about as good as it's going to get.

[00:15:32]>> Standing on a pulpit on the bow of a small boat, Greg Skumo wields a long pole that has a dart and a tag at the end.

[00:15:42]>> Wait, right there. Done. You got him.

[00:15:45]>> Tag.

[00:15:46]>> That was it.

[00:15:46]>> There he goes. Oh.

[00:15:48]>> Oh my god.

[00:15:49]>> Beautiful. Beautiful placement, Greg.

[00:15:51]>> Yeah. Thank you, John. Nice work.

[00:15:53]>> See, you can see where it was.

[00:15:55]>> Yeah. You could see it right at the base of the dorsal. See it?

[00:15:57]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:58]>> Now, we're going to learn about that fish for the next 9 10 years.

[00:16:02]>> They will track the fish because the tag constantly emits a ping that is picked up when the shark swims close to acoustic receivers attached to buoys.

[00:16:12]>> And how many of these do you have up and down the coast? We have over a hundred out all over Massachusetts.

[00:16:17]>> And that's just you. Other people have others.

[00:16:19]>> Yeah. So, we can actually track the movements of our white sharks when they leave here.

[00:16:23]>> The tags also help Scoal and his research colleague Megan Winton figure out just how many sharks there are and have established that Cape Cod is now one of the world's white shark hotspots.

[00:16:39]They regularly haul buoys out of the water and download data from them to a tablet that displays each time a tagged shark swims by.

[00:16:49]>> Lots of white shark detections over the >> This tells them a lot about individuals.

[00:16:55]They have confirmed that they are loners and that the same one will often come back to precisely the same hunting ground year after year. A white shark seemed to be hunting Greg Scoal last year when it came up jaws open right under THE PULPIT.

[00:17:12]>> OH, holy crap.

[00:17:14]>> Came right up and opened his mouth right at my feet.

[00:17:18]>> That shook him up for a bit, but he insists it shouldn't shake up the public. You know, all I can tell them is is that the probability of them being bitten is incredibly low. But there's not much more I can say >> because that fear is primal.

[00:17:35]>> I think that fear is primal. I think it's innate. I think it's in them. It's in us. It's in all of us. 5 days after our day on the water off Cape Cod, we needed a bigger boat for a very different shark tagging expedition 600 miles to the northeast just off Hay Island in Nova Scotia.

[00:17:55]>> Good morning.

[00:17:55]>> Morning. How are you?

[00:17:57]>> We boarded a 125 ft research ship called O Search, which has been tagging Atlantic white sharks from Florida to Canada since 2012. Founder Chris Fiser invited us to join the first day of his 2019 Nova Scotia expedition.

[00:18:15]>> And we come up here. We've been here 24 hours. We've seen two or three sharks and no one ever even knew to come look here before.

[00:18:22]>> Oarch launches a team on a small boat to hook white sharks much as fishermen would using long lines, bait, and floats to keep them near the surface.

[00:18:34]>> Hook in the corner of the mouth. Squirt away. Everything's green out here.

[00:18:37]>> O search is a converted Alaskan crab boat equipped with a platform that's lowered into the water off one side. As the small boat towes the shark alongside, O search fishing master Brett McBride leaps onto the submerged platform into water that's 49°.

[00:18:59]With the line in his hand, he guides an,00B male white shark onto the cradle.

[00:19:08]>> Whoa. Whoa. Look at that.

[00:19:11]>> The platform is raised out of the water, effectively beaching the shark. It offers no resistance. Worn out after being hooked and towed for nearly an hour. McBride gets right in its face to insert a hose between its giant jaws.

[00:19:30]>> Keeping the clean sea water from flowing over its gills. I'm making sure it's getting good oxygen.

[00:19:35]>> A team member starts a clock. They don't want to keep the shark out of the water for more than 15 minutes. And O search chief scientist Dr. Robert Huder gives me an opportunity I'm not quite sure I want.

[00:19:50]>> So, Bill, just go ahead. Go ahead and take your time because feel how beautiful that is.

[00:19:56]Oh my god, how smooth. Then go this way. Rub your hand the other way and you feel it's kind of bumpy.

[00:20:03]>> Yeah. My god.

[00:20:05]>> The O search team swarms the shark, drawing blood and tissue samples, picking off parasites to be analyzed, and measuring its girth and length.

[00:20:16]>> 371 total. That's 371 cm or 12 feet 2 in. The biggest Atlantic great white they've caught was a 16 foot female who weighed 3500 lb. As Chris Fiser measures this one, Bob Huder inserts an acoustic tag like the one Greg Scoal attaches with a dart.

[00:20:40]>> That doesn't harm the shark.

[00:20:42]>> No, it's just it floats in the body cavity.

[00:20:46]>> Let's roll the shark. Everybody step back.

[00:20:49]>> After the shark is rolled onto its belly, >> there we are.

[00:20:53]>> We're at 11 minutes.

[00:20:54]>> Chris Fisher drills through the dorsal fin. He insists it's no more painful than piercing an ear. He's attaching the tag that really sets OARCH apart in the world of white shark tracking.

[00:21:08]>> The spot tag allows us to track this animal in real time for up to 5 years.

[00:21:12]The spot tag will send a signal to a satellite each time this shark's dorsal fin comes above the surface of the water. Oarch has put nearly 50 of them on Atlantic white sharks and displays their tracks on its website.

[00:21:27]>> And that's how you learn not only where they are, but what they're doing where they are, which is what you need to know to manage, right? Where's the mating?

[00:21:34]Where's the birthing? Where's the foraging? Where's the gestating? While some scientists criticize the O search techniques as too invasive, they are gathering a lot of data. 17 different research projects will get samples and information from a single shark.

[00:21:51]>> Doesn't take much to make everybody happy.

[00:21:54]>> Still, there are a lot of unknowns. No white shark has ever been kept in captivity, and no one has ever seen them mate or give birth anywhere. But there are also discoveries. The O search team has confirmed that the waters off Long Island are an important nursery for baby whites like these called pups.

[00:22:19]>> Did you get him?

[00:22:19]>> Yeah, got him.

[00:22:20]>> And back on Cape Cod, acoustic tags are teaching Greg Skoal about just how far adult sharks travel.

[00:22:28]>> So, what's the most interesting thing you have learned about them? We now know based on the tagging work we've done the last 10 years is that when they leave Cape Cod, they go down to Florida and they spend the time in the Gulf of Mexico and they overwinter in these southern climates. But then some of these sharks move out into the open Atlantic Ocean. And when they're out in the middle of the Atlantic, they dive down to depths as great as 3,000 ft every day. And there's not a scientist on Earth that can tell you why they do that.

[00:22:56]>> Scientists have learned how long live they are. White sharks we now know live over 70 years.

[00:23:03]>> 70 years.

[00:23:04]>> 70 years.

[00:23:06]>> They don't start hunting seals until their late teens. But when they do, watch out. In this footage Greg Scoal shot, you see a seal leap out of the water with a shark right on its tail.

[00:23:21]>> HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THAT BEFORE? HERE, the shark catches a seal, and the ocean water explodes in blood red in an instant. The shark then swims away with half a seal in its jaws.

[00:23:36]Seals have been protected by federal law since 1972, and some 25,000 now live near Cape Cod.

[00:23:45]More seals means more sharks, and that's what worries the swimmers and surfers sharing the water with them. This photo was taken at the Cape barely a week ago.

[00:23:57]Great white sharks very rarely attack people. The one that killed a swimmer named Arthur Medishi just off this beach last September was the first fatal attack on Cape Cod since 1936.

[00:24:10]But it triggered a fear of attacks that can hardly be measured.

[00:24:15]Scary warning signs on every beach. Stop bleed kits at lifeguard stands. a phone app called Shark Tivity that reports sightings in real time with local news doing much the same. And community meetings packed with frightened citizens.

[00:24:34]>> And no sharks or seals are worth a young man's life. They're just not.

[00:24:41]>> You're the scientist, but you also live here. And you know, people are afraid.

[00:24:46]>> We can't bury our heads in the sand when it comes to shark attacks. And so that's in my face every day now. And then it always falls back on, you know, the question of, well, what do you tell your kids to do? You know, >> what do you tell your kids to do?

[00:25:01]>> You know, I I tell my kids, don't go out past waist deep.

[00:25:05]>> That's chilling advice for swimmers, for surfers, and for the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce.

[00:25:11]>> I mean, we basically got to undo everything Jaws did. I mean, we got half the people on the eastern seabboard terrified about something that almost never happens.

[00:25:21]>> I saw the teeth on this character here.

[00:25:24]People who are swimming nearby should not be afraid of that.

[00:25:27]>> No, they're clever. Like even though we dress up like their food and try to fool them, they very rarely get fooled.

[00:25:33]>> What do you mean dress up like their food?

[00:25:35]>> You ever seen what someone in a wet suit looks like compared to a seal?

[00:25:38]>> He's got a point. When this white shark's 15 minutes on the O search platform ran out, we were ordered off.

[00:25:46]>> That was amazing.

[00:25:48]>> They gave him a name, >> Sydney.

[00:25:50]>> For the nearest Nova Scotia town, and began lowering him back into the water.

[00:25:55]>> And what you guys have done to this does not harm or hurt the shark at all.

[00:25:59]>> No, because we're we're monitoring the stress of the animal throughout. After a couple of minutes, he perked up, especially when he noticed the O search photographer in the water around the corner.

[00:26:12]>> He's looking at >> Finally, with fish master Brett McBride helping steer him by the tail. Off went Sydney.

[00:26:22]>> There he goes. Do your thing. Good luck, OLD BOY.

[00:26:26]SYDNEY.

[00:26:28]SYDNEY. YEAH.

[00:26:40]There's no animal that we fear more and understand less than the great white shark. In part because it's so hard to get near them. Studying great whites hasn't been easy. But there is one man who has spent his life getting closer to great whites more often than anyone else. His name is Mike Rutson. And in South Africa, where he lives, he's known simply as the shark man. What he's discovered about these predators will surprise you. Far from being mindless killing machines, Rutson believes great whites are smart, curious, and not out to kill humans. And as you're about to see, he's willing to risk his life to prove it.

[00:27:24]Mike Rutson is looking for a great white shark he can swim with. That's right, swim with.

[00:27:33]Before he gets in the water, he needs to find a great white that's both calm and curious. A shark he refers to as a player.

[00:27:42]>> That's a player. What's a player?

[00:27:45]>> Well, player is basically the shark that's so relaxed, has a nice personality. woke up on the right side of the reef and >> on the right side of the reef.

[00:27:53]>> Yeah.

[00:27:54]>> Um and the animals willing to interact with us. It's so curious.

[00:27:59]>> Rudson says great whites have personalities. They may be the top predator in the sea, but he says they are not the man-eating killers of our nightmares.

[00:28:07]>> Now, how how can you tell that's a player?

[00:28:09]>> Look how she's moving. She's checking everything out. Checking how slowly she's going to do this. See how she looks at everything.

[00:28:16]>> Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's moving very slowly around the boat. Very slowly check. He's going to come and watch the motor now.

[00:28:21]That's what we want.

[00:28:22]>> So, this is a curious shark. You You can work with this shark.

[00:28:24]>> This is a player.

[00:28:26]>> This shark and several others have been attracted to Rutson's boat by chum, a mixture of bait and fish blood. It's believed Great Wyatt can smell a single drop of blood from a 100 yards away.

[00:28:39]>> My cover.

[00:28:41]Now that he's found a player, Rudson and his cameraman, Moure Hardenberg, suit up and prepare to do the unthinkable.

[00:28:48]Plunge into bloody water with great white sharks all around.

[00:28:52]>> There's no universities to teach you what these animal social dynamics are and social behavior is. And the only way to find that out is by getting into the water.

[00:29:04]>> Immediately, a curious great white comes straight at Rutson. His only protection, his camera. Rutson has figured out that great whites don't like the feel of metal.

[00:29:16]Good visibility is crucial. The sharks are constantly circling and Rudson has to continually turn around so they don't sneak up on him.

[00:29:24]>> They are extremely inquisitive creatures. I like to say they're like little kids in a toy store and you just tell them don't touch. Observe. They'll touch.

[00:29:32]>> Problem is when when they get curious they they sometimes bite.

[00:29:36]>> Yes. The animals are not trying to actively kill you. They're trying to outwit you. There's a difference. And you're trying to outwit them again.

[00:29:43]>> So, there's a mental battle going on or a mental game being played between you and the shark, >> I believe. So, yes.

[00:29:49]>> I That seems like the ultimate test of putting your life on the line.

[00:29:54]>> I would like to think that it's the ultimate trust between the animal myself.

[00:30:02]>> Rutson is not a scientist. He was born on a farm and knew nothing about sharks until 20 years ago when he began working as a fisherman along this rugged coast near Cape Town.

[00:30:13]These waters are home to the world's highest concentration of great whites.

[00:30:18]>> This is the hot spot in the world for great whites.

[00:30:20]>> A perfect hot spot because it's an ideal feeding ground for great whites. It's not far from the southern tip of Africa where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet. The water is rich in nutrients which attract whales, huge shos of fish and seals, some 60,000 of them. Seals are a prime target for great whites.

[00:30:42]Early one morning, Rutson takes us to an area called Shark Alley. The seals pass through here searching for food. There are plenty of fish in the sea. Why why are the sharks so interested in the seal?

[00:30:52]>> The reason for that is the blubber.

[00:30:55]Marine mammals have a blubber layer and that blubber whoa big shark.

[00:31:00]>> That blubber layer is extremely energy rich.

[00:31:04]>> OH MY GOD.

[00:31:06]>> That's what we're talking about.

[00:31:07]>> The sharks leap straight out of the water, stunning the seals before devouring them. Seals are mammals.

[00:31:13]They're quick, agile, and smart. But as Rutson has learned, they're no match for the power, speed, and intelligence of the great whites.

[00:31:22]>> They have to outsmart the seal. They if they weren't as smart or smarter than the seal, they wouldn't have eaten it.

[00:31:30]>> Watching great whites hunt has become a big business in this part of South Africa.

[00:31:36]Each year, tens of thousands of tourists flock to the town of Khanbai. They're offered a close encounter with great whites from the safety of an underwater cage.

[00:31:47]>> That was that was really something.

[00:31:50]Rutson started his own dive operation 15 years ago. It began as a business, but has become a mission, an effort to learn about great whites and dispel the myths surrounding them.

[00:32:01]>> I think that humans like to fear these animals and not understand these animals.

[00:32:08]>> Each year, as many as 70 million sharks are slaughtered to make shark fin soup, a delicacy in Asia. This undercover footage shows how fins are cut off while the sharks are still alive. Their bodies are thrown back into the sea.

[00:32:22]>> If people can just see these animals for what they really are, I'll be happy because then they have a chance of survival.

[00:32:29]>> By diving without a cage with the sharks, Rutson is trying to show that they're a lot more complex animals than previously thought.

[00:32:39]After every dive, he spends hours reviewing his material, trying to make sense of how the sharks interact with him.

[00:32:45]>> What are you doing with your body here?

[00:32:47]>> The smaller you make your body, the lesser threat you are, and then the animals should come closer. The bigger you are, the more threatening you are.

[00:32:57]Ruten believes that the great white is extremely selective about what it eats and insists he is not on their menu as long as he stays calm and shows the shark that he has no fear.

[00:33:10]>> So, it's important to stand your ground.

[00:33:12]>> The most important thing is don't chase the animals. Don't run away from the animals. Stand your ground and keep eye contact with animal.

[00:33:20]>> Make eye contact with >> Make eye contact. It's not like a primate. If you looking at it, it's already lost the element of surprise.

[00:33:27]>> Wow. Look at this.

[00:33:28]>> Nice. See that? You don't see every day.

[00:33:33]>> You see the eye?

[00:33:34]>> Oh my god.

[00:33:35]>> People like to think it's this evil black eye of this great whites. Their eyes are actually the color of the blue sea. It's beautiful. Do you like blue-eyed blondes? There's a blue eye that you can't match.

[00:33:47]>> I hope you've never complimented a woman by telling her she had eyes as pretty as a great white shark. Uh, not yet.

[00:33:54]>> Great whites have been around for millions of years, but they've never been seen mating or giving birth. Their senses are highly developed, but when it comes to touch, Rutson believes they often rely on their mouths.

[00:34:07]>> So, it just uses its mouth to feel you, but that's ends up being could be a deadly bite.

[00:34:12]>> Touch is a very important sense for a living animal. So, why shouldn't they use that sense?

[00:34:18]Rutson believes most attacks by great whites on humans have been the result of curiosity, not deliberate acts of aggression. Worldwide, there are only about five deadly shark attacks each year. A tiny amount considering the millions of people who swim in the ocean. Rutson says many of us have likely had a positive encounter with a shark without even knowing it.

[00:34:39]>> What do you mean by a positive encounter? It's where the animal comes to look at you, sees you're not food, it's not what you're hunting, maybe very curious in what you're doing, look at you for a while, and then move off again. You never know the animals there, but the animal knows you are there.

[00:34:53]>> And that should tell people what >> it would tell the people that these animals are not out to get us. They're not in our oceans to kill humans.

[00:35:03]Rutton doesn't take tourist diving with sharks without a cage, but we've dived together before and he offers to take me for an uplose look at the great whites.

[00:35:12]No cage, no protection. On a perfect calm morning, we head to Shark Alley.

[00:35:21]We drop anchor and the chumming begins.

[00:35:25]It doesn't take long for the sharks to arrive.

[00:35:31]I'm >> reminded of that line in the movie Jaws.

[00:35:33]I think we're going to need a bigger boat.

[00:35:36]>> The fact we have a paramedic on board and an ambulance waiting on shore isn't exactly reassuring.

[00:35:45]They've been chumming the water for about 40 minutes now, and there's about four or five great whites circling the boat, searching for food. There's one in the water right there as we speak. So, it's time to start the dive. Mike Rudson says the most important thing to remember when you're actually underwater with the great whites is to remain calm.

[00:36:03]It's easier said than done.

[00:36:07]Project confidence. That's what Mike Rutson recommends. Not exactly sure how to do that underwater with a wet suit.

[00:36:15]Rutson and cameraman Hardenberg have been doing this so long they're relaxed.

[00:36:20]My pulse is already high.

[00:36:22]>> Okay. How do you feel?

[00:36:24]>> Feel good. Feel good. Good may be an overstatement.

[00:36:28]>> Just remember, if I get eaten, just keep rolling. Cuz the only thing more stupid than being eaten would be to be eaten and not have it videotaped.

[00:36:35]>> Rutson believes the sharks now circling the boat are players curious and not too aggressive. It's an odd sensation knowing that you're about to jump into blood-filled sharkinfested water.

[00:36:47]Rudson goes first, then I take the plunge. Immediately, a 15t great white swims straight toward us.

[00:36:55]And listen, that's a big place.

[00:37:00]>> Their size and power is awesome. They don't attack. They want to see what we are and circle us constantly.

[00:37:08]>> This is amazing.

[00:37:10]It's coming right toward us.

[00:37:13]>> Up close, you see their razor sharp teeth and the strength of their bodies.

[00:37:17]>> Beautiful.

[00:37:20]It's terrifying but thrilling to be so close to such a massive predator. Seeing them in their own environment, not grabbing at bait or lunging at seals, gives me a new impression of them, a more complex picture. And that is exactly what Mike Rudson is hoping for.

[00:37:41]The current is getting stronger and visibility is deteriorating. Mike, you guys are returning to the cage. It's getting dangerous down there.

[00:37:48]>> So, we decide it's time to surface.

[00:37:56]>> That's just unbelievable.

[00:37:57]>> It's terrifying and at the same time just exhilarating and >> it's unlike anything else.

[00:38:03]>> Wow.

[00:38:06]>> And I'm so happy I'm back up.

[00:38:10]>> That was great. Thank you.

[00:38:12]>> That's incredible. I'm glad I did it, but I'm not sure I'd do it again. As for Mike Rutson, he continues to push the boundaries. He sometimes even hitches rides on the dorsal fins of great whites.

[00:38:26]These interactions are stunning, but Rutson insists he's not being reckless.

[00:38:32]The more we work with him, the more careful we are because of the knowledge. It's not that we're getting complacent because we have done it so many times. You're more careful with them now than you were when you started.

[00:38:45]>> Yes, because we are learning small things of what makes them tick. So, we are so careful not to do the wrong thing. You did say before though when we talked that you know you expect to die at a young age.

[00:38:58]>> Yeah. Well, look at my lifestyle. I smoke too much. I drink too much. And I drive my car very fast.

[00:39:06]>> But so you don't expect to die from a great white.

[00:39:08]>> No. No.